Tag Archives: brevity

When I’m in a bad place I’ll take any sensory overload I can control. I’ll listen to music loud enough to block out the outside and most of my thoughts. I’ll dive into a film or an episode.

It was raining tonight. As I was waiting for the train I stood outside the station. The train that would take me away from my home and to the house I was trying to escape. I just stood outside, face up towards the rain. It wasn’t a storm, it barely rains hard here, it’s usually no more than a long drizzle but this was a little stronger. I stood in the darkness, cars and people would pass and look at me. Did they think I was high or crazy or suicidal? Perhaps a combination of those. I pushed them away from my mind, I knew they wouldn’t recognise me even if they saw me again. One thing I’ve learned is that people don’t care about those they don’t know, most people forget the faces they see instantly.

I was standing face up, eyes closed in the rain feeling it crash softly on my skin. It felt like a thousand small pokes, each one confirming the same thing: I was still alive. It wasn’t invasive or violent, it was kind of just… there. And it felt good after having felt untouchable for too long. It was a small moment of peace in the middle of all this turmoil. A space where I could breathe without feeling crushed by whatever the world throws at me. I could feel the solid ground at my feet. For a few seconds at a time I felt completely free and I didn’t care who stared, who pushed me down, who made me feel trapped, unwanted, useless, or invisible. I was myself. And I was free.

I am the victim of a common plague in writing noobies: I write a lot of useless words. Of course, they don’t seem useless to me, however I am often told they are.

You see, most of my short stories originate from visual sequences in my mind, filled with insane amounts of detail, each adding a tad of splendour to the scene. If it weren’t for the SpeakEasy’s (Weekly writing challenge) word count limit, many of my posts could be twice as long as they are. It’s rather easy to end up writing at length when trying to describe a three dimensional movie in your mind, filled with sights, smells, sounds, touches, and tastes. Not only that, but writing about sci-fi/fantastic plots often requires much more context then the real world’s, as foreign concepts/objects that are well defined to me need to be summarized and explained to a reader.

Despite this, I strive to edit the not-so-important stuff out, just to keep whoever is reading from falling asleep. Sometimes it’s tough, saying goodbye to a good sentence, one that deserved its place in the final story, just because it didn’t fit. Pressing “delete” can sometimes be a hard thing. That sentence probably had friends and family… It’s in a better place, now.

To sum it all up, on the brevity/verbosity spectrum, I definitely am more akin to the latter category. However, with efforts, I hope to be able to naturally write crisp, concise pieces, without having to put down good material, fruits of lots of mental work.

Thanks to Daily Post for the fun prompt. First time I submit to you guys! Hope you liked this brief (dem puns) piece. Comments much appreciated. Thanks for reading!

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